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gwern comments on If calorie restriction works in humans, should we have observed it already? - Less Wrong
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It might be important to look at nutrition, too. A lot of people who've experienced forced calorie restriction were malnourished. The kind of calorie restriction CRON advocates follow for instance involves eating less calories, but of more nutrient-dense foods to avoid starvation effects, as far as I understand it.
This was my response when David Brin made the religious argument: monastic or hermit diets are not famous for their variety or density, and one of the most common religious strictures is no meat - which immediately makes protein difficult to obtain. And yet, even with these impoverished diets, you still see frequent claims of very long lifespans (which are usually dismissed as implausible, but that's assuming the conclusion for the purposes of this CR discussion).
When I read about Buddhist monasteries in Japan, for example, the diets seem to be mainly rice and some vegetables. Few nuts, fruits, fish, or meat like you see throughout the CRON recipe book.
So I regard the religion argument as weak; much better to watch the preliminary results of the human study or any primate studies.
Getting adequate complete protein on a vegetarian diet is not at all difficult, and in fact, usually does not even require attentiveness to one's food intake. Getting adequate protein on a strictly vegan diet generally does require attention to one's food intake, but is still entirely practical.
I'm sure it's doable. That doesn't mean it's done. As I pointed out, on the occasions that I've read of historical monastic diets, especially Buddhist ones, they did not strike me as paying any attention to protein.